Bones Under The Beach Hut

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The expression on Lionel Oliver's face as he watched his wife walk out of the beach hut was a complex one, combining puzzlement, annoyance and protectiveness. 'What are you on about, Joyce? Of course that's what happened.'

'No, it isn't. I think it must be true that Robin drowned in the pond, as you said he did. I didn't know that till just now, Lionel. But if he did, it wasn't you who was meant to be looking after him. It happened on my watch.'

'That's ridiculous, Joyce.'

'It happened on my watch,' his wife repeated. She looked at Lionel, daring him to interrupt her, then turned firmly to Carole and Jude. 'I didn't know the half of what he's just told you. I just woke up and heard almost all of it. Lionel, why couldn't you have told me before?'

'There wasn't any point,' he mumbled. 'Why should you suffer too?'

'I should suffer because I deserved to suffer. I should suffer because it was my fault.'

'No.'

'Yes, it was. I don't know why you two are here, but since you've heard the rest of it, I think that you should hear the truth. My daughter-in-law, Miranda, didn't trust me. She didn't like me looking after Robin. And she was right. Because back then I had a serious problem. A drink problem. We tried to keep it quiet from everyone, but the family knew. Miranda certainly knew and that was why she would only let Robin stay with us if she knew Lionel was going to be there, that it wasn't just me on my own.

'Well, that day, the day that Rory and Miranda were going up to London to see the matinee of Les Miserables, I'd had a real blinder the night before. I was on more than a bottle of gin a day then, and that morning I woke up having slept very badly and with the kind of crushing hangover that can only be alleviated by a very large hair of the dog. But I'd drunk the house dry the night before. I was desperate for a bottle of gin. I managed to disguise how I was feeling from Rory and Miranda when they came to bring Robin over, but as soon as they'd gone I ordered Lionel to go and buy me a bottle of gin. I'm not proud of how I was in those days. I was a monster.'

'No, you weren't, love,' her husband protested feebly. 'You couldn't help yourself. It's an illness.'

'I was a monster,' Joyce reiterated. Jude began to understand the great hatred Miranda Browning had felt against her mother-in-law. 'So, I ordered Lionel to go and replenish my stocks of gin and I was in sole charge of Robin. Except I wasn't in a state to be in charge of anything or anyone. I remember that

I fell asleep at the kitchen table. Robin was around before I fell asleep, and I know the door to the garden was open, and the next thing I remember was Lionel waking me up.

'He seemed a bit agitated, but I didn't ask him why. All I cared about was the fact that he'd brought me a bottle of gin. I got stuck into that. Lionel said he was going to take Robin down to Smalting, get him an ice cream, maybe spend some time with the boy here at Mistral. The next thing I'm aware of is the news that Robin's been abducted and the police are coming round and...'

There was a long moment before Joyce Oliver turned back to her husband and said, 'Tell me the truth, Lionel. Did you come back that morning from buying the gin and find Robin drowned in the pond?'

There was nothing he could do but nod abjectly.

'But why did you do all you did? Why?'

'If Miranda had ever found out that I'd left Robin alone with you ... If she'd found out that you were dead drunk and had let him go near the pond on his own . . .'He shook his head, unable to say out loud what would have happened.

Joyce Oliver looked at her husband with an expression of infinite pain and infinite respect. She realized the extent of his love for her. To put himself through all the trauma of police questioning, the inevitable suspicions that he might be a paedophile . . . all that for the woman who had allowed the child he adored to die.

'The only good thing to come out of any of it,' Joyce said, 'was that, although I didn't know the details of what had really happened, the shock of Robin's disappearance did stop me drinking. Maybe I felt guilty for the fact that the last time I'd seen him, I'd been almost comatose from the gin, I don't know.' A deep sigh trembled through her body. 'All of this is going to take a long time to come to terms with.'

They were aware of a young man in a crumpled beige suit hovering on the edge of their charmed circle in front of the beach hut. Lionel Oliver looked up and recognized him. 'Ah, Inspector Fyfield. The car's here, is it?'

'Yes, Mr Oliver. The Superintendant would like to talk to you back at the station.'

'Of course.'

'I think he ought to talk to me too,' said Joyce.

'I'm sure that'd be fine. If you wish to accompany your husband, Mrs Oliver . . .'

'Yes, I do. Lionel, if you'll just lock up Mistral. . .'

'Of course, love.'

'Carole and Jude,' Joyce went on, 'if you don't mind just walking up to the car with me, I'd like to get your contact numbers. I think there are a few things we're going to need to talk about.'

The two women reckoned that was probably an understatement. Joyce Oliver picked up her beach bag and the three of them followed Inspector Fyfield up the beach.

On the edge of the prom Joyce stopped by a bench, which faced away from the sea, and sat down. 'If I could just get those numbers from you . . .'

The simple process seemed to take a long time.

Joyce Oliver shuffled through the contents of her bag in search of pen and paper, but her hands were shaking so much Jude had to help her. In spite of her earlier apparent calmness, she was clearly in a state of shock.

But eventually one of her wordsearch books was found. Carole and Jude wrote down their contact numbers on the back of it. Then they followed the route taken by Inspector Fyfield, who was by now leaning against his car. Though he had his back to them, the women could detect the impatience in his body language.

It was an unmarked police car with a driver in civilian clothes, not a patrol car. After the shock of being a scene of crime, Smalting was not about to suffer any further affronts to its middle-class respectability.

Or was it? Jude, as ever hypersensitive to the mood of her environment, experienced a feeling almost of dread. She tapped Carole on the sleeve. Both looked out to sea. Lionel Oliver had put his suit jacket on, as if dressed for work. The water was already up to his chest as he continued to march steadily forward away from Smalting Beach. Carole and Jude knew that his suit pockets would be full of shingle.

Jude looked at Joyce Oliver, but the old woman's powdered face was unreadable. Had she deliberately created the delay in taking their phone numbers so that her husband would have the opportunity to make his escape before anyone could stop him? Had some secret message passed between the couple as they parted for the last time? Those were questions that Jude felt sure would never be answered.

Inspector Fyfield contacted the coastguard. A rescue helicopter was immediately mobilized. But of course it arrived too late.